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John Grayston will chair a « Meet the Regulators » session at ICPA Barcelona on 12 June.

The speakers will be: Michael Peeters (Head of the Strategic Goods Control Unit at the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs) and Tom Smith (Head, Export Control Organisation at the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills).

The session will discuss current and future developments in EU Export Control and will allow participants to raise issues – such as dual use forum shopping; licensing procedures and practice and information exchange between Member States - directly with the speakers.

For further information see: http://icpainc.org/conferences/barcelona/

By measures adopted on 3 and 4 May 2012 the EU implemented full economic sanctions against certain individuals in the Republic of Guinea Bissau.

The measures list 6 persons only.

Our firm is delighted to be a sponsor of the International Compliance Professionals Association’s 3rd Annual European Conference to be held at the WTC in Barcelona from 10-12 June 2012 .

Registration is still open and full details of the event, agenda and sessions can be found at  http://icpainc.org/conferences/barcelona/

The EU has increasingly been implementing within the framework of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), besides the binding Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, its own autonomous restrictive measures or sanctions.

The EU Council has adopted a further set of additional restrictions on trade with Syria which now includes a ban on trade in luxury goods.  This is the thirteenth addition to EU sanctions with Syria adopted since the start of 2011.

As expected on 23 April the EU resolved to suspend all sanctions against Myanmar with the exception of those concerning exports of military goods.

The European Union has adopted three new measures reinforcing and extending the scope of the EU sanctions against Iran - brief references and links to the source documents are set out below :

The UK Government has imposed additional sanctions against Iran. National measures were adopted under Schedule 7 to the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 and entered into force at 3 pm on 21 November 2011.

DG TRADE is organizing a full one day conference at which it will set out how the European Commission intends to implement the provisions of the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement  (the FTA text is available here)

The EU Commission's anti-trust officials accompanied by their national counterparts carried out simultaneous dawn raids on Tuesday morning (27/09/2011) across the EU.  The number of locations reported to have been raided makes this one of DG COMP's largest dawn raid operations to date.

There has been a clear upsurge of antitrust dawn raid activity in the EU since a couple of weeks (map below) in a wide range of sectors.  With the summer break over for antitrust officials throughout the EU,  now would be a good time to dig up and revise those antitrust dawn raid manuals, in particular the emergency contact details of your company’s listed dawn raid team members.

The longest surviving EU anti-dumping measures expired at midnight on 13 July 2011.

The Dutch authorities have announced that during autumn 2011 they will be specifically targeting importers and producers of household lighting who will have to prove that their products comply with EU Ecodesign legislation (Directive 2009/125/EC).  Failure to prove compliance will result in the products being refused entry onto the EU market and likely prosecution for those involved.

John Grayston has been invited to speak again at this important conference on the impact of EU export controls on doing business in Asia.

Full conference details can be downloaded here: 2nd Singapore Summit on Export Controls Compliance

DG TRADE is organizing a full one day conference to discuss a broad range of dual-use export control issues.

The UK National competition authority - The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) - has published on its website (here) a number of new competition guidance notices for companies doing business in the UK. Although these are geared specifically to the UK market, they concern matters of general application across the EU and can therefore be a valuable resource for all EU compliance programmes.

Poland takes over the revolving Presidency of the Union for the first time since joining the EU in 2004.  Poland's term runs from 1 July to 31 December 2011.

The provisions of the new TOY SAFETY DIRECTIVE enter into force on 21 July 2011.

Directive 2009/48/EC  replaces the existing Toy Safety Directive (Dir 88/378/EEC) and adds a number of additions to the regulatory system which collectively result in stricter rules requiring more detailed compliance.

On 30 June the EU Commission adopted a consultative  GREEN PAPER on the future direction of EU Dual Use controls.  The title of the paper is "Ensuring Security and Competitiveness in a Changing World".

The UK Bribery Act 2010 comes into force on 1 July 2011 following the publication, at the end of March, of detailed guidelines and intended effects of the Act.  In addition separate prosecution guidelines have been published by the Serious Fraud Office which explain when prosecutions are likely. Both documents are of central importance given the very wide scope of coverage of the Act.